"Freedom isnt to do whatever you want to do, it's to do what you ought to do" -- Rick Santorum

[trumad]

https://twitter.com/#!/thinkprogress/status/171626139624800258

[Enrique]

1. oh God imagine him as president

four years of this asshole giving sermons instead of running the country.

[elleng]

2. I agree; no problem with this.

'Its a free country' is something we said in the playground, when I was a kid.
Freedom enables us to do many things; it should encourage us to learn what is the right thing to do and what ISN'T right/ok; ask the question.
What others think we 'ought to do' is always open for discussion.

[Morning Dew]

3. The freedom to do what Santorum says should be enshrined in the Constitution.

Everyone ought to agree with this.

[Politicalboi]

4. "Some freedoms should be limited"

GW.Bush.

They all fell off of the same just right height tree.

[G_j]

5. sounds very much like Sharia law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia

[SomethingFishy]

6. Freedom, Ricky,

was given to you by people much better, smarter, and tougher than you will ever be.

As I look at the three folded flags on my mantel and think about the men they represent, men with actual courage and brains, it disgusts me to think that those men gave their lives so a fucking clown like you could pretend that you have a prayer of getting elected.
My father and my grandfather did not give their lives so you could bash gays or attack women. They didn't give their lives so you could berate liberals, so you could rant against schools and sciences. They didn't die on the battlefield so you could tell me how I am supposed to live.

If you had one fucking iota of what freedom really meant, you'd have never entered the race to begin with.

Rick Santorum, YOU DO NOT STAND FOR FREEDOM. You are a chickenhawk. You will always be a chickenhawk. You aren't fit to shine my dads fucking shoes. Whatever you think freedom is, you are damn lucky there are better men than you out there who had the courage to die for it instead of corrupting it.

And that you little weasel, comes from the mouth of a pacifist who has seen what the real "cost" of freedom is.

[trumad]

16. Great post

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. Stick a sock in it you little worm, you!

I am sick of reading what this asshole think everyone should do/say/think/feel.... etc.

STFU already you sanctimonious little shit!

[Angry Dragon]

8. Then why doesn't he follow his own words??

[Douglas Carpenter]

9. what I suspect some people might miss about Rick Santorum is that his views are

very, very much normal - to the point of cliché among most American fundamentalist Christians. If they are a large enough force for him to win the GOP nomination - all this crazy talk will only help him. He truly is speaking their language like no candidate including George W., Sarah Palin or even Michelle Bachmann has ever done before - so publicly and so unabashedly. If he does pull off a win in Michigan next week - they will truly be in ecstasy.

[11 Bravo]

10. What he meant to say was "it's to do what I THINK you ought to do."

[Uncle Joe]

11. Not according to the dictionary.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/freedom

"free·dom   /ˈfridəm/ Show Spelled[free-duhm] Show IPA
noun
1. the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: He won his freedom after a retrial.
2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
3. the power to determine action without restraint.
4. political or national independence.
5. personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: a slave who bought his freedom."

I believe what Santorum is really talking about is "responsibility" that's a good word too, : The President's responsibility as per his or her oath is to uphold and defend the Constitution and not the Bible.

Here's part of the Constitution.

Article I.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Thanks for the thread, trumad.

[NutmegYankee]

12. And I thought Dubya could say some stupid stuff.

This guy just seems to eat his shoe day after day.

[Motown_Johnny]

13. "And I will decide what it is you ought to do"

Enjoy Your Freedom!

[Ganja Ninja]

14. As decided by people who want you to do as they say.

[usregimechange]

15. That's brilliant!

[bayareamike]

17. IMO "what you ought to do" is the opposite of freedom.

The "ought" implies some sort of social construct that coerces one to act in a certain way. From Santorum's point of view, that construct is religion. His statement is nonsensical.

Of course that's just my two cents

[d_r]

18. everyone is perfectly free to

behave the way I want them to behave.

[tanyev]

19. Well, I think people who don't want to have babies ought to have easy access to contraception.

So there.

[IrishEyes]

20. No, he got it wrong.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to loose" -- Janis Joplin.

[donaldnewm]

21. Santorum shows his true colors on individual freedom

Santorum's "freedom isn't to do whatever you want to do, it's to do what you ought to do" reveals even more clearly his profound opposition to individual freedom. His ideology reflects far more the ideologies of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, the Church, and radical movements, than it does the belief systems of John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and the Founding Fathers. In the Anglo-American tradition, freedom usually has meant the absence of external restraint, and is only one value to be balanced with other values. The Continental philosophy seeks to meld freedom and morality so that an individual is only truly free when he or she is acting consistent with the values of the institution, be it State or Church or Party. Recall Rousseau's "forced to be free." And revisit Isaiah Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty.

[tabasco]

22. Guess who tells you what you ought to do......